Victory for dog owner who fought to get medicine for his lurcher labelled in Irish
Gaeilgeoir wins after taking his legal battle all the way to European court
A LEGAL fight to get a dog’s medicine labelled in both English and Irish that went all the way to Europe has ended in victory for his owner.
Peadar Mac Fhlannchadha, from the Connemara Gaeltacht, bought the medicine in Galway for his then ten-year-old lurcher, Samhain.
The Gaeilgeoir’s subsequent legal battle led to a case being argued in Irish for the first time at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and has now been ruled in his favour by the High Court.
Mr Mac Fhlannchadha, advocacy manager at Conradh na Gaeilge, took his action against the Minister for Agriculture and the State.
Judge Úna Ní Raifeartaigh said in her judgment that the case concerned the question of whether Ireland failed to correctly transpose an EU directive concerning the written information to be provided by the manufacturers of veterinary products.
The judge said Mr Mac Fhlannchadha had argued that the directive required the relevant information to be provided in both Irish and English when the product is sold in Ireland, because both languages are ‘the languages of the country’.
However, the Irish transposing regulations permitted the information to be provided in either English or Irish.
Judge Ní Raifeartaigh found the EU directive was unambiguous and that the labels must be in all the official languages used in a member state – therefore Irish and English.
She said she had asked the CJEU how much discretion the court could apply in its judgment, noting that a new regulation was being brought in by the EU, in January 2022, which would give a choice to member states about what language they could use on such labels.
She said that on the back of advice from the CJEU, she had to rule that Ireland must amend its national law to ensure that labels were written in both English and Irish – pending the new regulations coming into force.
She said it gave her ‘no pleasure’ to reach this conclusion, given that it might have adverse practical consequences to the Irish agri-business sector.
Unfortunately, Samhain, the dog at the centre of the case, did not live until the final judgment on the matter was delivered.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, Mr Mac Fhlannchadha said he was pleased by the result, but was waiting to see if it would be appealed by the State.
He also said he was also pleased that the case had resulted in a hearing in the CJEU in Irish, for the first time.
‘No point in State paying lip service’
Mr Mac Fhlannchadha said he had not initially taken the legal route, and had tried to resolve the issue directly with the Department of Agriculture, but was not successful. He said: ‘At the end of the day, we have a language and it is our language, the national language of the country.
‘There is no point in the State paying lip service to that, without following it through.’